UC Tonight

We are going to be approving grants for student groups and our budget for the semester. Never mind that the administration still hasn't given us our money, you can't stop the UC!

Anyway, I probably won't be able to add too many comments, but feel free to liveblog if you are at the meeting.

This Just Got A Whole Hell Of A Lot Better

The UC has come up with a compromise proposal that they have given to the administration to end the impasse that has threatened HoCos (though that was solved today) and put into question the autonomy of the elected student government. This compromise would make it clear that the UC can spend the students' money as the students have elected them to do but also allow the administration to make sure that nothing illegal is done with that money. The only thing now is for the administration to agree to the UC overture.

Here is the proposal as it was presented to the UC this evening:

This Just Got A Whole Hell Of A Lot Worse

The administration has decided to freeze the UC's funding. They demand that UC funds (which come from YOUR $75 term bill fee, not from the University) no longer go to any alcohol purchasing. The only way around it is if a "reasonable effort" is made to ensure that underage people cannot drink and that people are drinking safely, by which the administration means that in order for the UC, student groups, and HoCos to buy alcohol with money from the UC (which is where most HoCos and student groups get their money), they basically need to have an expensive Beverage Authorization Team (BAT) present at the event.

While this started with the administration's trampling of the autonomy of the elected student government with regard to their demand to end the Party Fund, this new stage is now disconnected from the Party Fund and, from what it seems, premeditated on the part of the administration. Even if the UC ended the Party Fund, the administration would still require the new alcohol policy restrictions.

Aside from the question of alcohol, the administration is showing utter contempt for the autonomy of the UC. Right now, in order for the UC to give out any money for an event, we must bring receipts from the event to Dean Paul McLoughlin and then, upon inspection (including to check that no alcohol was purchased), he will write a check to the student group or HoCo.

Needless to say this will be extremely burdensome on the UC, Dean McLoughlin, and student groups/HoCos, but it also means that there will be no upfront funding of any events. To clarify, HoCos receive their funding from the UC in one lump sum at the start of the semester; with this new policy, they will have to pay for their events (think the 90s dance, stein clubs, etc.) out of their own (the student HoCo leaders) pockets and then wait for the UC to get the receipts from them, for the UC to give those receipts to Dean McLoughlin, for Dean McLoughlin to review all of them (thousands of dollars worth of receipts!), and then to write a check to be sent to those HoCo leaders. Same for all student groups.

Finally, I would like to mention quickly that it appears the administration overstated the case of the illegality of the Party Fund. Harvard's Office of General Counsel advised them that the Party Fund put Harvard at risk and given this advice the Student Activities Office decided to demand the killing of the Party Fund. However, the OGC did not say unequivocally that the Party Fund was patently illegal.

In any event, the burdens now placed on the UC, student groups, and HoCos and the violation of the sovereignty of the elected student government (which is, by faculty decree, independent in its governance) are absolutely intolerable. We must fight this- for our social life, for our self-determination, and for democracy.

UC Liveblog: THE RETURN (aka "Don't Tase Me, Bro" Party Fund Edition)

With great fanfare, the Harvard Democrats' liveblog of the Undergraduate Council meetings returns!

And, as is the prerogative of the UC, we will be discussing a controversial topic: the recent demand by the Administration to Cease and Desist the (student-funded, UC-run) Party Fund.

But first, we have some administrative (small- A) matters to attend to which I won't (nor can I) bother you with. 

And If You Haven't Had Enough Racism Yet...

Apparently I should just post things that conservatives (I'm assuming the Final Club guy was conservative- if not, let's just categorize that as probably conservative for now) say and let them speak for themselves. I don't think anything I write could do more to persuade someone to hate conservatism than that Final Club piece and this (which I have no idea why it wasn't published by The Indy...):

Save the Whales, Kill the Babies
The Left's Latest Nefarious Plan: Suicide in the Name of Mother Nature
By Frances Martel

America's environmental lobby has grown desperate. Throughout the 1990s,
when Hillary Clinton was President, foreign policy was the ongoing
background joke to the sitcom that was the American federal government
(memorable one-liners from that series included Waco, universal health
insurance, the Rwandan genocide, and Monica Lewinsky). The Clinton's
interests were difficult to decipher, as their apparent goal became an
assault on the wellbeing of every American and, later, the best interests of
everyone on the planet. Thus went into the books eight years of history,
where the President and his wife (co-President would be a more apt term)
frisked about the White House grounds, creating mischief for subordinates
and interns like a modern-day Zeus and Hera. With the worst interests of the
people in mind, the political environment for the nature crowd was ideal.

Then any environmentalist's worst nightmare came to life.

In the blink of an eye, they became pass=E9, and the influence that had ris=
en
with the fall of the Berlin Wall crumbled at the base of the World Trade
Center. They lost sympathy in the White House and became completely
irrelevant to American concerns. They were relics America was more than
ready to donate to the Clinton Presidential Library's collection.

So, for a few years, they hired mercenary leftists like Jake Gyllenhaal to
star in movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" and played Dr. Frankenstein on
the political corpse of Al Gore, giving his eyes a faux twinkle =E1 la Bill
Clinton and his hips the salacious curves of Michael Moore. They remain
perplexed that, somehow, the invasion of Afghanistan remains more important
than the dwindling population of giant armadillos. They are in awe when the
death of Saddam Hussein in Iraq attracts more attention than the death of
Yan Yan the Panda in the Berlin Zoo.

"Surely this is a farce!" they exclaim to each other, "The vast right-wing
conspiracy has brainwashed Americans into caring about issues that affect
human beings!"

The typically pacific environmentalists have chosen to go out with a bang,
however, and their latest creation, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement,
might be the last nail in their coffin. VHEMT (pronounced "vehement"- how
clever and revolutionary!) calls for its members to remain childless,
arguing that the damage human beings cause to the environment is so great
that the world would be a much better place without us. And founder Les U.
Knight- again, so clever I don't know whether to laugh or cry- might be one
of the more moderate members of the American extinction crew; he proposes it
should be completely voluntary and occur within a time frame that is
appropriate, while colleagues like author Alan Weisman propose the Chinese
solution: a governmental mandate to prohibit families from having more than
one child.

"Let's unite in peace and love and not make any more kids" sounds like a
great idea for Starbucks poets and basket weavers from sea to shining sea
(Cambridge to San Francisco), but it might take the more sensible populace
of the United States a little time to warm up to the idea. Not to mention
that, upon suggesting this American genocide, they seem to be forgetting a
significant chunk of the American population that will be at a complete loss
when understanding their argument: the illegal aliens. How exactly, I
wonder, will the nature lobby explain to Guadalupe from Mexico, who crossed
the Rio Grande with four children in her arms and another in her womb at age
20, that "as long as there's one breeding pair of homo sapiens, there's too
great a threat to the biosphere," as Knight has been quoted as saying? How
are they going to explain to Guaycoloro from Peru that he needs to sheathe
himself with a condom before ravaging his wife after a drunken night on the
town with his futbol buddies or initiating an extramarital affair with a
minor? Something tells me that Native South American culture is not
particularly well suited to this idea of family planning in the name of
nature, and culture shock is not something that should happen between
residents of the same nation.

If we really want to integrate these scorned and unwanted fiends- pardon me,
completely faultless, angelic, and beloved newcomers, like child molesters
Alejandro Bautista and Ruben Hernandez-Juarez- into our nation, we can't be
touting all these radical ideas that will only alienate them further from
American society. In fact, we should be adapting to the changing times. Any
little alteration in our culture will be a formidable bridge upon which
these undocumented immigrants can cross into our society. Despite the minor
damage we will cause to nature by having more children, the open-arms
approach to immigration that elevating the American population will usher in
is sure to make those that disrespect the meaning of citizenship and come
into this country to commit felonies feel just like they are back home. And
when they acquire the right to vote, maybe they will vote for the reforms
VHEMT and Weisman are calling for.

(Here's the link to the GOP-Open email that contained this gem. The list archives are public, so please don't attack me for confidentiality etc. etc.)

Would you like a little school with your elitism, racism, sexism, etc.?

Harvard senior seeking female companion- 22

This was recently posted to Craigslist today. And here, I was stressing about which Lit. and Arts A to take on my first day of classes...

(The post is reprinted below in case of deletion/broken link.)

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He Shall Take Care That The Laws Be Faithfully Executed

Impeach Bush.

He has broken the law. He has probably broken many laws, but this cannot be brushed aside: President Intervened In Dispute Over Eavesdropping.

Specifically, the NSA wiretapping program was (is?) illegal. The Justice Department said so itself. Yet the President overruled the Justice Department and continued with the program. Even if he was outside of the law for only a few weeks (if we was outside the law before the program was "fixed" then it was a few years, not weeks, actually), that is more than long enough.

Spying on Americans was the reason Nixon was going to be impeached. I can think of no greater reason to get rid of a president then because she/he illegally violated the civil liberties of Americans.

(The impeachable offense aside, the conduct of the President, Andrew Card, and Alberto Gonzalez is absolutely despicable in this affair.)

If you think a president should not be impeached for what Bush did here (and I don't mean the spying program on its own, I mean conducting the spying program even after the Justice Department ruled it illegal), I can't imagine what you think a president should be impeached for.

Rape? What Rape?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=518304

WHAT?

So, basically, being raped is as bad as being accused of rape?

"Preventing sexual violence hinges on sexual responsibility." It is the rape victims responsibility to prevent themselves from being raped?!? Is there any other crime in which the victims are responsible for preventing the crime from happening to them?

And, finally, is she seriously arguing that we are all being silly and "overstating the prevalence of the rape problem"?

Speechless...

Ending CORPORATE Music Piracy

There was an opinion piece in the Crimson today by the President of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It bemoans the imminent destruction of music in this country due to piracy.

While we all may have our own opinions on music piracy, the idea that anyone should shed a tear over piracy is beyond me, given the obviously larger problems that afflict the recording industry.

The fact is, the music recording industry is monopolistic (or oligopolistic, if you prefer). 85% of all music released is done through only 5 labels/corporations. In comparison, the rest of the media industry in this nation is similarly monopolistic (which has even more corrosive effects on our democracy) but the level is significantly less bad with 8 companies controlling over 50%, a much smaller ratio (though still horrible and terribly unfair).

While the monopoly represented by the RIAA (the RIAA is mostly these 5 corporations) may not actually be engaging in price-fixing, as some accuse, its consolidation of the market leaves it open to those allegations. Furthermore, such consolidation is bad for competition, which is bad for consumers and for artists. It means we get worse products for higher prices and artists get treated worse for less money. If the RIAA actually cared about artists' wellbeing, they would pay them a fair amount of money for their music (and I am talking about the majority of artists that are on the major labels who have little job security and little compensation for their work, not the big, flashy pop stars).

The solution to the crisis in the music industry is not focusing on stopping downloading piracy but on stopping corporate piracy.

Get Rid of Prisons!

We live in the country with the largest "official" prison population (China's might be higher, but they don't say so). We have, by far, the highest incarceration rate of any developed country. Overall, 25% of all prisoners IN THE WORLD are in prison in America.

A major problem is that we incarcerate so many non-violent offenders. 57% of the prison population was convicted for a non-violent offense (most of the time related to the War on Drugs). In fact, over the past quarter century, violent crime has decreased but the prison population has quadrupled!

Another disturbing trend is the increasing privatization of prisons. With so many government contractors and other conservative plots to make huge corporations richer, this isn't surprising. However, unlike the damages caused by some of those other schemes, privatization of the prison system means the creation of a market for prisons and, thus, prisoners. Not only does this disincentivize crime reduction, but it incentivizes sending more of our people to prison, regardless of the social consequences.

Furthermore, the prison system is undeniably racist. With huge populations of men of color in prison, our society is showing its willingness to exercise the only exception allowable for slavery under the 13th amendment.

Finally, the system itself is designed to punish whereas its true purpose should be to rehabilitate, in my opinion. Why else would we still allow capital punishment? Why else would we send non-violent drug addicts to the violent environment of prisons and not to rehab?

However, the solution to the problems above (and they are by no means exhaustive- terrible prison conditions, including rape, ridiculous mandatory sentencing laws, massive prison overpopulation, and despicable disenfranchisement laws are just a few more to mention) lies not in reforming prisons. Prisons are the problem. Prisons have not been around forever, not even for the lifetime of this country. There was a time when there were no prisoners. In order to save our society, we must return to a world without prisoners.

This does not mean that those who commit offenses against others would roam free able to commit them again. On the contrary, reform and prevention would be dealt with in the local community through mediation and strategies to keep people from harming each other. Furthermore, by reducing poverty and inequality, we can drastically reduce most crime, as can be seen by the low prison populations in more equal societies.

There is a reason countries like those in Scandinavia have incarceration rates a tenth of ours. You can argue it is because we give our people more freedom and so they commit more crime. But locking up 1 out of every 136 of your citizens is not what I call freedom.

Real Election Reform

While it is great that many election reform laws are being passed, they are all very superficial in many respects. They ignore some of the serious fundamental flaws in our system.

A reform we need urgently for our legislatures is proportional representation. While the Congress is a difficult institution to change, state legislatures could be fixed rather easily.

The need for proportional representation comes from many places. Importantly, it allows for full representation of the electorate. Instead of a plurality of voters being represented (which is sometimes as low as 30% of voters), PR makes every vote counts. It gives a voice to the minority, but still allows majority rule.

Another solution PR provides is the elimination of gerrymandering. Because representatives are elected at-large, there is no need to create districts, thus no way to gerrymander them.

While there are problems with PR, the biggest ones don't apply to most of our governments. For example, PR is usually derided as creating unstable government. However, since our legislatures do not need to elect the executive/leadership, there is no need for formal coalitions which are prone to breakdown as is the case in parliamentary systems.

There are also many questions to be dealt with by the implementation of PR. An important one is the selection of committee chairs in legislatures. This can be done through majority vote (preferably IRV) in the committee or in the body at-large.

Of course, PR is only for legislatures. However, a related reform would be to elect executives through IRV so that a majority chooses them and not a minority/plurality.

There is a reason that the newest democracy in the world, Iraq, as well as a majority of the world's democracies (especially the major ones) use PR. It's about time our country caught up and adopted full(er) democracy.

It Is Their Right, It Is Their Duty, To Throw Off Such Government

Imagine we are a year and half in the future. It is September 11th, 2008 and (still) President Bush is addressing the nation. The most recent polls show that the (unnamed) Democratic presidential candidate is heading to a landslide victory. Bush announces that, due to the continued threat of terrorism, he must cancel the upcoming elections because if the elections were to proceed their result would endanger our national security.

Sure it is far-fetched, I don't mean to fear-monger, I mean to hint at the feeling that such an event would instill. Presidents have skirted the Constitution before (hell, the current one already has). What if our government became tyrannical, what would you do?

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Taiwan and Chechnya

Russia invaded Chechnya, a breakaway republic which Russia claimed as part of its contiguous nation, after Chechnya declared independence on the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US did not intervene militarily to stop this (we made some diplomatic flutters about the harshness of the original 2 year campaign and of the ongoing, since 1999, campaign).

If China invaded Taiwan to bring it back under central PRC control, how would this be fundamentally different?

I know that Taiwan has claimed de jure control of China, but it has given up on that claim. Also, while Taiwan has de facto independence, so did Chechnya prior to the second invasion.

I am not claiming the situations are the same or necessarily similar. I just do not have enough understanding of the two situations to declare whether they are different or similar.

I would love to hear why they are different. If they are not, why did we not intervene in Chechnya and/or why should we intervene in Taiwan?

(Please come to the Dems-HRC debate on American foreign policy toward China this Saturday!)

Worried About Trans Fat? Here's a Suggestion...

New York City recently got a lot of press about banning artificial trans fat from restaurant food by 2008. The media, in general, has made a lot of hay about the dangers posed by trans fat, almost like the killer bees or the flesh-eating virus were back to attack but in our food this time. This campaign is good, to a degree. Trans fat is bad for your health, increasing your chance of heart disease. Not only does it raise "bad" cholesterol, like saturated fat does, but it also lowers "good" cholesterol.

Since the biggest (and only agreed upon) risk of consuming trans fat is coronary heart disease, I find it interesting that all these bans only affect artificial trans fat. What I mean is that we consume plenty of natural trans fat in other foods. Artificial trans fat comes from partially hydrogenated oils used in some fast food, snack food, fried food, and baked goods. Natural trans fat comes from the milk and body fat of ruminants (cows, among others)- dairy and beef.

Moreover, not eating meat reduces your overall chance of coronary heart disease by 24% (not eating meat is the #1 best way to reduce your risk of this #1 killer in human beings 65 and older- and since 75 is the average lifespan of Americans, coronary heart disease is kinda your #1 best chance of death). So, if you are concerned about trans fat (or coronary heart disease, as that's the only agreed upon risk of trans fat), you might want to consider reducing your consumption of meat and dairy products. (Reduction being the key, you don't have to be vegetarian or vegan; reduction of bad habits is the best way to go with anything, right?)

Anyway, the political point of this post is about the bans that are popping up around the country (especially in liberal places). I am generally a person who prefers not to ban things that cause harm to the person who is using that thing only (although, there is a point that the bans are on restaurants, not on individuals from making foods with trans fat). For example, I am against banning cigarettes for individual use (as long as you minimize harm to others not consenting to the second-hand smoke). Therefore, I think it might be a tad overbearing to ban artificial trans fat. BUT, if you are going to ban artificial trans fat because it is a health hazard (meaning it causes coronary heart disease), you should instead ban meat since it is a much larger hazard.

UK to Announce Timetable for (beginning of) Withdrawal from Iraq

Tony Blair is supposed to be announcing it soon. It's the beginning of withdrawal, but not full withdrawal (apparently, Blair says the troops won't all be home by the end of 2008...).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6380933.stm